The average foreigner with no experience of the Far East usually has the impression that manual Inbour in China is the cheapest in the world and that anything manufactured or produced in China must necessarily be considerably cheaper than a similar article made else-this impression, and possibly still is in certain instances, though it ix strongly to be feared that the Chinese labourer—or at least thos. of him employed at great centres such as Shanghai and Hongkong—is fast losing, if has not already lost, his former reputation of giving'a day's work for a day's pay. A contractor's overseer, who years ago had considerable experience in construction work in the U. 8. and in England, and who since has been engaged in connexion with a large building in Shanghai, has. stated definitely that in his opinion a gang of 12 Irish.or Italian labourers in the United States could, without undue exertion, do piece of work in half the time it would take 100 Chinese labourers. That apstatement, but a slight study of the present-day Chinese working man at work soon gives one the feeling that the worker is doing as little as possible and doing it as] slowly as possible. There are, of course, honest, industrious Iabourers in China as elsewhere, but it needs only for one to watch, for a short time, a body of Chinese Iabourers engaged on construction al work or in any other employment where output does not regulate pay, to be convinced that the majority' of workers have that appearance of lassitude which comes only from a keen desire to avoid as much work as possible, A typical instance was reported these columns some days ago in connexion with the re-laying of the tram-car tracks, and this case is by no means an isolated one. Perhaps: before long we shall see foreign employers of native labour following the custom of many Chinese employers, and instituting system of piece-work with payment strictly by results. It works well in Europe and America, and there is no reason why it should not be equally effective here. surely would result in a day's work being given for a day's pay, which seems to be the exception rather than the rule at present. greatest city in the Far East, the Model Settlement _and the second port in the world. Last year Kuala Lumpur organized what for short was called an Agricultural Show, but actually it appears to hav been a model for Wembley to work upon, for it embraced an agriculture al show, horticultural show, dog show, trades exhibition, rubber exhibition, baby show, public health demonstration, poultry show, flying and sports carnival. It was a great success, as of course it was almost bound ' to be, and, encouraged thereby, the committee built up a still bigger exhibition, which was opened some few days ago and has tall the Malay States and the Straits Settlements talking. If one jean judge by the newspaper accounts, the success of the exhibition mainly has been due to wholehearted ce-operation on the part of everyone. In the dog show there were no "black-eared setters" running wild and causing havoc, nor ere there any young ladies' trailed around behind the secretary for two hours, asked the same question over and over again and then accused him and all his associates of lack of organization, Everyone seems to have taken an interest in each of the sections, from polo to babies, dogs to daisies, bulls to needlework, and the result has been most happy. It seems extraordinary that in Shanghai we cannot arrange even an agricul-al show, whilst Kuala Lumpur apparently" is to have a great combined exhibition annually. "Probably mot one per cent. of Shanghai's population have' any iden of the number of really splendid cattle in and near the Settlement, any more than they believed there' were so many well-bred dogs until they saw them, and even now they have not seen the half of what could be put on exhibition.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.